Sugar
by Saturnine Spiders
Summary: Hermione was in the right! She didn't do anything wrong, she swears. Dark!Hermione


**Title:** Sugar

 **Beta:** Carolare Scarletus

 **A/N:** I watched Happy Sugar Life before writing this. You can't blame me for how this turned out, okay? Also, Hermione is both in character and not in character — my idea is that her horrors from the war made her leave the Wizarding World in hopes of finding something kinder, sweeter even. Something that wouldn't drive her into insanity, but of course, that didn't work out too well, did it?

 _Special thanks to Lollixlolli for giving me the request to write this, it was a joy to write, that's for sure!_

* * *

 **12:59 PM**

"Hermione..."

The wind swooped up through her blinds, over the heights, rushed and rustled through her chrome sheets, and gradually ebbed away through the fabric crags to silence — but, beneath the stirring empyrean, a pale boy as white as her sheets quivered, the howls of the moon robbing him of sleep. He tossed about, his skin flushed with beads of sweat, and he heaved as the wind came and went. The cold was nipping at his toes, but he wasn't shivering because of it — the closet door was open, and he swore he saw the stringy veins of someone's eyes.

His mother was right. There was a monster in the closet — with flesh as dark as the still penumbra above, teeth as waiflike as the dead grass outside, and a stomach as large as the portly dog next door. Collin could barely breathe, and for a fleeting second, he though his asthma would be the death of him. But, he knew better. He knew that the monster within the closet with teeth as sharp as needles was going to eat him — tear his flesh from his bones as if it was string cheese, and pick out his veins as if it was steamed spinach. He didn't like spinach, and he was sure neither did the monster.

No one likes spinach, at least in his rose-tinted world.

But, the monster would like the taste of his paunchy flesh as a fawn would like the taste of their mother's milk. It would gobble him up, and he would spend the rest of his young life within its stomach. But, he couldn't let that happen! He had dreams; he had ambitions, he had a legacy to complete. He wanted to travel to the land of the stars — be one with the gibbous moon, be one with the dying light of the sun. He wanted the see the stars as they twinkled beneath their ethereal shroud. He wanted to be like the robust, salt and pepper men in his books, with wide, complacent grins and sweet, ingenious minds.

The monster wouldn't care for that, though. The monster was there to eat him and use his bones like toothpicks. The monster didn't care to learn of dwarf stars and planets as large as the Pacific Ocean; the monster only cared to learn about what his thick, crimson blood would taste like. The monster in the closet wanted him, and Collin was terrified — he was shaking in his cotton trousers.

"Hermione..."

She was asleep in the cot next to him, her tangled brown hair scattered about her head, and he swore he could hear mumbled snores coming from beneath the mound of pillows. Collin knew, just knew, that she could protect him from the monster within the closet. She was, as his mother described, a warrior in soft fabrics. A woman of cryptic, cardinal acrostics and feral aspiration; something of a paradox, really. Collin didn't understand her or the big vocabulary list that spilt out of her verbose lips at all. He was sure that the minute she went off about something or another, the monster would flee of boredom.

Not that he thought she was boring — Hermione breathed of zealous comprehension and dull sweets; something Collin couldn't exactly wrap his simple-minded head around. Whereas he was young and roguish, she was aged and wise. He wanted to say she was ancient, but her main of chocolate curls wasn't quite silver yet. Not like his mothers, whose hair was a wisp of silken webbing and wiry dead ends, almost as grey as the myriad of withered leaves outside.

His mother was a kind woman, and as the monster's eyes shone a bloody hue through the cracked closet doors, he wished her sun-kissed arms were there to hold him close. But, she wasn't there, she never was, anyway. She worked until the light in her eyes were as dull as the forgotten toys downstairs, and when came she home, she slept under the bathroom cabinet until her tears filled the porcelain sink. But, she wasn't a bad mother.

She would bring home black taffy and dark chocolate, and yet, despite the world being mercilessly bitter to her fragile state of mind, she would never once miss an instant to tell him she loved him. She would cradle him into her lap and croon a sweet lullaby of the ever-glaring moon, and she would exhaust herself until she heard his laughter ring through the dense halls. No, she wasn't a bad mother.

She just loved him too much.

But, even so, she wasn't there. She couldn't protect him from the monster, and even if she could, he feared the monster would gobble her up too. Collin didn't know if he could bear seeing the taper in her wide, sunken eyes go out — she was everything to him, even with her horrible faults. Hermione, though, she was different compared to his mother. She didn't cry herself to sleep, at least, from what he could tell, and she didn't look at herself in the mirror as if she had been chained by the reality of her own brittle flesh. Hermione would smile even through the end of the world, he was sure.

"Hermione!" Collin grabbed her shoulder with his cold palms, shaking her, his voice barely above a whisper, but she didn't move. She snored beneath the thick sheets, and her eyes fluttered, but she didn't stir awake. He was frantic, now, using his whole body to shake her out of her stupor. She shot up, then, as if she was prancing cat in the inky black of the night, and Collin starred in morbid apprehension as she violently twisted beneath the coiled sheets before quickly calming down, her breath ragged and harsh.

"Are you okay?" He asked, as innocent and as sweet as a cruller dotted in sugar, and Hermione couldn't help but smile at his ringing fingers and frantic eyes. He stared at the space around her, as if a ghost of an image was clinging to her frame, and then, as if he couldn't breathe, he hiccupped. His shoulders slouched, and his eyes were cast at his feet, and his teeth clenched until his tongue bled, and he was _crying_. He sobbed, and he sobbed, and Hermione didn't know what to do as he collapsed into her lap, his seemingly never-ending tears soaking her shirt.

"Collin?" She was barely touching him, but he could feel the warmth of her arms around his still frame, pulling him close. Her tone was that of butterscotch and liquorice; a bittersweet tone that made Collin want to melt against her chest, hiding his flushed face from her concerned eyes. "What are you — What's wrong?"

He hiccupped, wiping his nose against his sleeve. "I'm fine," he said, a little too quickly. He wasn't weak, he wanted to say. The monster ate those too weak to fight back, too weak to look it dead in the eyes. He wouldn't do any good dead.

"You're crying, that's more than enough proof to know you aren't anywhere _near_ fine," she said dryly, pushing the loose, blonde curls out of his face. The dark creases under her eyes were more pronounced, now, as if someone had taken a marker and drew them on. "You know how I feel about lying, Collin. I wasn't born yesterday."

His mother didn't like liars, either. A liar was nothing in this world. "There's a monster!" he whispered, waving at the closet door as if he was telling the very secrets of life. "I swear I saw it! It was going to eat me and use my bones like toothpicks. You _have_ to believe me!"

He was yelling now, and he knew the monster could hear him, taste him, and smell him. In the corner of his eyes, he swore he saw the ivory gleam of its needle-like talons. "Please," he whimpered, rubbing his eyes against her sleeve. "I don't wanna die, Hermione!"

Pulling him off of her, Hermione walked over to the closet, her shoulders slouched and head swarming. "There is no such things as —" She didn't know why she stopped, but she did. Perhaps, deep down, it was because she knew it was a lie. Monsters _were_ real, as much as she wanted to tell herself they weren't. She couldn't lie, no matter how silly it sounded. He was a child, only a child. "The monster won't eat you, Collin."

Collin refused to see reason. "Yes, he will!" he cried, pulling the sheets over his head. "Make him go away!"

Hermione rolled her eyes, pushing the closet door shut. "See? He's gone."

He poked his head out, screamed, and then hid again. "You're lying," he conceded, the words rotten on his tongue, as if it tasted like discarded eggs. "You said it yourself. You said you didn't like liars. So, stop _lying!"_

Tears were prickling at his blood-shot eyes, and Hermione could feel the guilt as it weighs her down, eating away at her. "I'm sorry, Collin. You know I didn't mean anything by that..."

He sniffed at her, wiping his tears furiously. "Only you can say something like that. The monster wouldn't eat you! You're too, too _thin!"_ He didn't mean to say that, he really didn't.

"Collin! Stop that this instant, you are fine just the way you are! Pudge or not. You have no reason to goad yourself like a lamb for slaughter," she scolded, her mousey brown hair obscuring her eyes from view. She wanted to yell at him, scream at him — anything. But, she couldn't. He was a child.

"You wouldn't understand!" He was sobbing again, shivering beneath the chrome sheets. "I wish I was smaller. The monster wouldn't eat me then, right?"

Hermione could only nod, the fatigue of sleep evading her as her stomach ached and skull throbbed. She wanted to throw up, she wanted to die, but she didn't understand _why._ Perhaps, she was sick. But, that was a silly thought — her throat wasn't parched, and her nose wasn't running, and her eyes weren't crusted over by the lulls of sleep. She was tired, that's all.

Tired.

"Can you make me smaller?" The lily-white sugar in his smile warmed her heart — the bitterness of his tongue gone, and all that was left was something sweet, too sweet. Hermione couldn't say she liked the taste of sugar, but the way it dissolved against her tongue and stirred her head around as if she was on a carousel enticed her. But it's not really about gastronomy, is it?

"I could," she said as if tasting the words on her lips, her fingers twitching. "But give me one good reason why I should."

"You love me!" Hermione didn't know how she felt about that, but the sugar in his words was playing her like a fiddle. "Mother said you did, so, it has to be true! Right?"

Hermione laughed, and for a minute, she wanted to throw her head back at the obscurity of it. "Sure, Collin. I wouldn't be a very good babysitter if I didn't, huh?"

"Then you can make me small because if you loved me, you wouldn't let the monster eat me," he conceded, his eyes closed, holding the comforter close to him. It was endearing, really. The trust of a child was fickle but as pink and sweet as the candy jar underneath her bed — but just as a glass jar, it could shatter to a point of no repair. "Promise me, Hermione."

"What?" she breathed, the tip of her wand digging into her thigh.

"That you'll take me for ice cream tomorrow," he said, his eyes moving rapidly behind his eyelids but never opening. Hermione twitched, ichor flowing freely down the side of her leg, licking at the carpet. His favourite was lemon, she remembered.

Sour.

Hermione didn't like sour things. _"Reducio!"_

Except, he was sweet.

* * *

 **2:08 AM**

Foolish.

She was so f _ucking_ foolish, but she would never admit that aloud.

This wasn't her fault — she didn't think, she was so sure — no, it was her fault. She didn't _think!_

Not for a moment, not for a single, ephemeral second — not even a moment to look back at her honeyed brooding and just _think._

Nothing.

She really was foolish.

But, there he was, asleep and as tiny and as insignificant as the stem of a lollipop. So little, so small — she didn't think it could be possible. It shouldn't have been possible, but that meant — that meant she could turn him back. Surely, he wouldn't stay that way. She wouldn't know what to do if he did. Should she tell someone?

Absolutely not.

Her wand would be taken; she would lose what little bit of humanity she had left, she would be a husk of flesh with nothing but the weighing guilt of _something_ keeping her alive, breathing. There would be no sweets underneath her cot in prison; no sugar or intoxicating pink, nothing. She would shatter along with the glass jar, a vessel left to rot — what was she thinking.

Of course, she could turn him back _. "Engorgio!"_

Or, maybe not.

* * *

 **9:19 AM**

Hermione sat at the dining room table, resting her chin on the back of her hands as she watched as colourful wheels of cereal sailed along the subsiding waves of milk. Collin was splashing about, the milk up to his chest, a soggy blue ring around his waist like a crinoline — Hermione couldn't help but admire his lily-white eyes. When he woke up, he had simply turned on his stomach and latched himself to her skin, soaking in the coolness of her benumbed flesh like a dog to a bone.

His scarlet flesh was like a veil of gentle flames against her pale exterior, wounding itself around her like a great, hungry serpent. Hermione could almost taste the cloud of noxious smoke as it played with the strings of her smouldering sagacity — winding her up like the cage of a wide-eyed marionette. She had tried everything to get the plump jellybean-like boy to a normal size, but nothing worked.

He just watched on, as if the world around him was a sweet, dead man's wonderland.

"Hermione?" he asked, keeping his head down and away from her unwavering eyes. He was poking at the piece of cereal around his waist, probing its miry, blue flesh with a sense of wonder about him. "Do you think I will stay like this forever?"

"No," she lied, digging her spoon into the table. It was simple, reassuring, little white lie. It wouldn't hurt anyone, she just — she just had to figure it out, that's all. It was like putting the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle into its rightful place. Easy as pie. "I'm sure you'll go back to normal once the monster disappears..."

Easy as pie, right?

Who was she kidding, she didn't even know _how_ to bake.

There was a certain silence that fell over them, then, and Hermione relaxed against the back of her chair. She shouldn't worry so much; too much stress would turn her chocolate brown hair into a plume of grey smog. "You said you'd take me out for ice cream, you know."

Hermione smiled, tilting her head at him until her hair covered the white of her eyes. "Don't you think it's a bit too early for that?"

"Your point?"

"You're bathing in a bowl of cereal, Collin. I think I have the upper hand here."

Collin huffed, wrinkling his nose at her as if she had scorned the cold, buttery sweet to its creamy demise. "But, Mother is going to be here soon!" he begged, wrestling against the slippery edge of the bowl as he climbed out, sprinkling the wooden counter in milk. "Can't you make an exception?"

"Soon?" she said, more to herself than to him. Hermione didn't like the sound of that, she really, _really_ didn't. Collin was snuggling into the thin fabric of a napkin with milk and hints of wet cereal curled into the roots of his blonde hair — he wasn't what a mother expected to come back to. Collin wasn't lounging in the crease of a recliner like she would predict, eyes glued to the telly, nor was he running aimlessly outside, trying to capture the pretty fairy lights in the palm of his hand.

Collin was estimating the height of the table, his legs swinging off the ledge and contemplating how long he had to fall until every bone in his body shattered. And, Hermione was watching him, the tip of her tongue flushed with the metallic taste of ichor, wanting to yell, wanting to scream. But, she didn't, she couldn't. Hermione was absolutely, positively frozen in her place.

His mother would be here soon, and she would find out and tear her limb from limb—

 _Ding Dong!_

Scrap that, she was already here.

Fuck.

* * *

 **9:35 AM**

Hermione had spotted her from the window next to the front door. Worn green curtains hang limply on flaking chrome rings and through the gap, passers pay her no attention at all. She was sat in one of the great, big wicker chairs on the porch, legs neatly tucked under her and hidden from sight — a kind of honeyed-like woman, with a pair of sunken eyes and abundance of sweat accumulating her creased temple. She was patient, sitting there as if she had been out there all morning, the sun beating against the back of her neck like a hound of dogs waiting to taste her warm blood under their famished tongue.

She could see the floaters, those few long, elegant strands of hair she always kept at bay with a hand as she read — like wisps of grey, ethereal clouds framing her hardened features. Her expression was tired like the colour had drained from her sun-kissed flesh and ran, puddling at her scuffed, monk-strap shoes. There was the steady patter of rain against the window, droplets yet to scatter the nascent rays of the still rising sun. But when Hermione turned to look at Collin's mother, again, her eyes were closed as if she was on calm seas, aimless as a child on summer vacation, paddling, at ease with the fluidity of time.

The sunlight above her rouses more colours from their sleepy monochrome, and though the road ahead still has the black look of the night, the sky is already more bluish than charcoal. Under the fumes of the morning traffic a tincture of the dawn lingers, like dew on leaves, a gift of freshness bequeathed anew each day, and Collin's mother stirs with it. If Hermione didn't know better, she would assume she was asleep, knocked out like lights of the night, like the brief flicker of a candle fire — but Hermione knew better than that.

She was just tired, weary with the burden of long-closed eyes, and as her jaw went slack and drool dribbled from her open lips, Hermione opened the door, her heart pounding so loudly she could feel it in her throat. "Chantal?" she whispered, her mind going blank and voice hitching.

"Hm?" Chantal droned, blinking the sleep from her melancholic eyes. "Oh, Hermione. I didn't see you there."

She lifted herself up, slowly, her bones creaking with each movement as if her body were made of nuts and bolts. "Thanks for watching him, again. I really do appreciate it."

A soft smile spread across her chapped lips, contouring the hardened features of her face, and Hermione felt the urge to smile with her but dismissed the thought. "Would you like to come in? I could make you a cup of tea before you leave. I know you probably need it."

Chantal nodded, a tired chuckle escaping her lips. "Lead the way."

Hermione stepped to the side, walking into the living room and motioning towards the loveseat, her legs trembling with each step. "Sit here," she said, her words forced. "I'll put the water on the stove."

Chantal fell back onto the couch, relaxing her pounding temple against the cool leather. "God, you're a saint. Is Collin asleep?"

"Something like that," she said, already out of sight.

Collin was lying precariously on the edge of the table, his head peering over the horizon, arms swinging back and forth. A chord struck in Hermione, and she kneeled, her breath ragged and forced as if someone was pressing their palm into her chest. Fear was the shackles chaining you to reality, fear was a knife in the gut, and fear was a constant hammer on the head. Yet fear also evaporated like water under an early summer sun. When fear came, you walked with confidence right past because like the ghosts of children's nightmares, fear was an illusion. But as Hermione stared at Collin, her mind was starting to fail, like an engine that turns over and over, never kicking into action.

She couldn't formulate a single coherent thought. Hermione was floating in the dark of space; away from his sweet eyes, away from the pink of his sugary flesh, and away from the cruel kindness of his lily-white smile — like the wisp of a honey bee buzzing about, its honeyed wings fluttering with each beat of her trembling heart. Hermione touched the base of her throat, feeling the muscles contract underneath her feather-like touch — she felt like she was going to throw up her insides, spray her blood all over the ceramic floor and paint the room a beautiful, vibrant red, like the bottles of wine lined against her magnolia walls.

Her movements were mechanic and robotic like her flesh was corroded copper, and her bones were rusted silver, slow and forced as she boiled water over her stove, the steam obscuring her line of vision as she swayed along with the eddied smoke. She could hear Chantal shift around the couch, moving the patterned pillows, and pulling at her tuffs of grey hair — restless and exhausted, surely.

The water burned the tips of her fingers as she poured it into a pair of maroon teacups, swallowing the white tea bags at the bottom of the cup into its sweltering heat. Hermione sighed, grabbing a myriad of sugar cubes into her hand and threw them haphazardly into the tea, watching as they slowly fell apart, accumulating at the bottom into a pile of sickeningly-sweet white syrup. Her hands burned as she grabbed the cups, placing them both on a small, silver tray — _this was it,_ she thought.

She only had so much sugar to give.

Collin seemed inclined to ride in her shirt pocket hidden from view as they walked back into the living room, tray of honey and sweet tea in Hermione's hand. Chantal was reading through one of her many books, her eyes delicately following along the page, and her finger elegantly stroking the words with such tender caresses that it seemed as if she was petting the novel instead of reading it. She looked up, and as they caught eyes, Hermione scuttled in the seat across from her, her cheeks rosy and tips of her lips twitching into a small, invisible frown.

"Chantal?" she said as she rolled the jar of honey across her hand, watching as the syrup slowly ebbed across the edges of the jar. "You have to promise me something."

"What?" Chantal inquired, her brows lowering in concern. "What's wrong?"

" Please don't be mad! Know that I only did it because he asked it of me, you have to understand that!" Hermione's words were rushed now, slurred even. She could feel herself panting, a panic building in her chest. "He was scared, Chantal! I just wanted to make him feel better, really..."

The jar of honey crashed to the ceramic floor, and Hermione cried out as its sharp edges cut at her bare feet. "What the hell are you talking about, Hermione?"

Chantal was standing up now, yelling at her, and Hermione cowered into the couch — was she always this weak? Hermione didn't know what to think anymore; everything was wrong. Everything. "Please hear me out," Hermione said, lifting Collin out of her shirt pocket and placing him on her lap. He seemed to be shaking, terrified by the loud noises, and the putrid scent of sweat and blood. "Collin, say hello to your mother."

Chantal swayed so dangerously close to the ground; she looked as if she was about to collapse to the floor in a heap of flesh and tears. Her jaw was open slack, and her deep-set auric eyes were staring at her as if a ghost was clinging to her frame. Then, she laughed as if someone had told her the world's funniest joke, throwing herself back onto the couch in a fit of gasps. "This is insane!" she yelled, sounding more insane than anything else in the bleak little room. "I must have drunk my heart out before I came here or something."

She then leapt from her seat, grabbing Hermione by the collar, a bitter, ugly look in her dull eyes. "Tell me, Hermione. Tell me I'm drunk, please."

Hermione pushed her off, pulling Collin to her chest. "No, I'm sorry. But, look—" she held him up, and Collin waved at his mother, never once looking into her eyes. "He's all here. No harm done, right?"

"No harm done?" she repeated, more to herself than to anyone else. "No harm done!"

Hermione didn't like the bitterness in her tone; it was too much — she wasn't supposed to be like this, Chantal was sweet and sugary, like the honey coating her blood-caked feet. _Sweet,_ why wasn't she sweet? "He looks like one of his bloody toy green soldiers!"

A silence overwhelmed Hermione, and she trembled under its presence. "How did this even — you know what, forget it. I'm calling the police; I always knew something was wrong with you. Freak."

 _Freak._

That wasn't a kind word.

 _"Stupefy!"_

And neither was the sound of porcelain shattering beneath her weight any kind, either.

* * *

 **10:23 AM**

Collin laid asleep in her hands, his soft skin fluttering with each breath he took against her burning flesh. It calmed her, kept her steady, but she knew she wouldn't stay like that forever. His mother was on the ground next to her, shards of porcelain embedded into her skin, blood weaving through the cracks in the floor like a spider's web. They looked so innocent, so kind, so _sweet_ as they slept, their eyes racing beneath their eyelids, and jaws slack with drool.

Hermione let her head rest against the couch, closing her eyes. She wasn't a horrible person, right? No, of course not. Chantal had threatened her, tried to hurt her, even. She was in the right! She didn't do anything wrong, she swears. Collin was scared of the monster within the closet with teeth as waiflike as the dead grass outside, and stomach as large as the portly dog next door. The monster couldn't hurt him anymore; the monster was long gone and hidden from sight.

The monster was gone.

But, it could come back and eat him whole. Hermione couldn't let that happen, no, of course not! She loved Collin; she loved more than she loved herself. He would be safe elsewhere, anywhere but here. But where? He couldn't go outside for the ice cream she promised, the monster would find him as he's licking the side of his spoon, and he couldn't go back to his house, the monster would find him as he's sleeping beneath his space-themed comforters.

Surely, the monster wouldn't find him in heaven?

No, monsters don't go to heaven, silly.

Collin would be safe in heaven.

Hermione placed him on the cool, ceramic floor, and smiled a serene smile. He was a sweet and as small as the stem of a lollipop, and as Hermione slowly rolled her foot over his sleeping form, she felt his bones shatter and skin crack; his sweet, red as cherries blood pooling around her feet.

Such a sweet boy.

The monster could no longer haunt his nightmares.

Except, that wasn't right.

Because Hermione was the monster he feared, wasn't she?

 _Bitter,_ huh?

She was bitter.


End file.
